Writing with impersonal verbs:

Aside from their subject, impersonal verbs work like every other verb. You can still use impersonal verbs in different tenses, like the present perfect or future continuous, and you can use them with modal verbs, like can or might. Just look at these impersonal verbs examples below:

It snows all the time here.

It has snowed every day this week.

It will be snowing all month.

It can snow as long as the temperature stays cold.  

As you can see from these examples, impersonal verbs use the third-person singular conjugation to match the subject it, no matter the tense, even when used with the contraction it’s.

It’s snowing outside. (It is snowing outside.)

There is only one exception to this rule, which we will address below.

As mentioned above, some normal verbs can act impersonal depending on their usage. These include some irregular verbs or expressions that use irregular verbs, such as the idiom go without saying or the verb get when used to describe the weather or general conditions. Even when acting as impersonal verbs, irregular verbs still use their same unique conjugations.

It goes without saying that smoking is dangerous.

I thought it went without saying, but I guess not.

In summer it gets dark in the late evening.

Why has it gotten dark already?

While nearly all impersonal verbs use the impersonal pronoun it as their subject, there’s one common impersonal verb phrase that doesn’t. The impersonal verb phrase they say uses the impersonal pronoun they instead of it. This phrase refers to common knowledge or popular adages, so in this case, they doesn’t actually refer to anyone or any group in particular.

They say all that glitters is not gold.

They say spring is a time of new beginnings.

Note that with the impersonal pronoun they, the verb takes the third-person plural conjugation rather than the third-person singular conjugation that all other impersonal verbs take.

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Examples:

·             blizzard

·             come to

·             darken

·             drizzle

·             get

·             go without saying

·             hail

·             happen

·             look like

·             occur

·             pour

·             rain

·             say

·             sleep

·             snow

·             storm

·             thunder